Creative Circle 2012 Winners

Last week we donned our glad rags (ok a clean pair of jeans) and headed to Camden for the Creative Circle advertising awards. It was a top-notch night celebrating the campaigns that caused a splash over the past 12 months – here’s a look at some of the winners…

Graphics wise it was good to see the very talented, very tall Matt Judge pick up an award for his Design Assembly book, best art direction went to AMVBBDO’s posters for the V&A Museum of Childhood and RKCR/Y&R’s Land Rover Passport Stamps was a worthy winner too for a beautifully simple, creative idea (all these can be seen in the slideshow above).

Rapier took the prize for Best Typography thanks to their Yell Street Wiser campaign, narrowly edging out these Kit Kat Kloks from JWT…

There was a long discussion on our table about how awards like these should balance creative ideas and actual sales results, and the debate was typified by the big winner of the night, last year’s Christmas ad for John Lewis. It’s obvious that it splits opinion but its impact was undeniable and (whisper it) even some jaded creative types were heard to sing its praises.

And it was good to see this Aldi spot pick up an award, mainstream it may be but the way it wrong-foots the viewer still makes for a delightfully unexpected ending…

In 2012, Channel 4’s Paralympic Games campaign, Meet the Superhumans raised awareness and understanding of disability in sport and helped London 2012 Paralympics become the first Paralympic Games to sell out. The broadcaster took Paralympic sport to another level and it was through its striking 90-second TV ad that they achieved this.

London-based ad agency CHI & Partners has created this compelling and moving spot to mark the 40th anniversary of the Prince’s Trust, known for helping young people aged 13-30 get into education, training and jobs.

Director Henry Alex Rubin has directed adverts for brands such as Adidas, Volvo, Samsung, AT&T and Coca Cola. His most notable campaigns include Whopper Freakout for Burger King and Pizza Turnaround for Dominos. Having won 30 Cannes Lions, he is in the top five most award-winning commercial directors in the world. His 2008 documentary film Murderball won an audience award at the Sundance Film festival and was nominated for an Oscar. Below he talks us through some of his favourite moments in adverts he has directed.

Earlier this week PrideAM and Diva magazine published the results of a competition inviting agencies to “challenge the hetero norms” and raise the profile of LGBT people in advertising. The winners, Drum and Iris, re-invented well-known campaigns with lesbian couples as the stars. Scott Knox, founder of PrideAM (Pride in Advertising and Marketing), the first LGBT+ group for the advertising and marketing industry, and MD of the Marketing Agencies Association, spoke to It’s Nice That about how the results could promote diversity.